Cross-reference is made to U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 09/270,320, entitled xe2x80x9cSecure Token-Based Document Serverxe2x80x9d, Ser. No. 09/270,451, entitled xe2x80x9cMobile Email Document Transaction Servicexe2x80x9d, and Ser. No. 09/270,645, entitled xe2x80x9cMobile Document Paging Servicexe2x80x9d, which are all assigned to the same assignee as the present invention and hereby incorporated by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a system for performing document services using mobile computing devices, and more particularly, to a system for providing users of mobile computing devices with context sensitive hierarchically ordered service menus.
2. Description of Related Art
While the use of mobile computing devices is becoming more prevalent among mobile workers, transfer of document information between mobile computing devices is often limited due to inadequate storage capacity on such devices or due to inadequate communication channel bandwidth. To overcome these limitations, many mobile workers carry a laptop computer with them while traveling. Although laptop computers are increasingly smaller and lighter, their functionality, which is designed to meet the requirements of office-based document work, is determined largely by the desktop machines from which they evolved. Powerful editors and spreadsheet applications, for example, that are essential in certain office-based work environments have limited utility while away from the office. In some circumstances, mobile workers carry laptop computers simply to be able to access their documents, and not necessarily to create or edit them.
One mobile document transaction service for overcoming these limitations is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,862,321 (also published in European Patent Application EP 691,619 A2). More specifically, U.S. Pat. No. 5,862,321 (entitled: xe2x80x9cSystem and Method for Accessing and Distributing Electronic Documentsxe2x80x9d) discloses a system for transferring between computers document identifiers that represent a particular document, rather than the document itself. This system can include any number of workstations, file servers, printers and other fixed devices (including multifunction devices) coupled to a network, as well as a number of mobile computing devices carried by users and coupled to the network by an infrared (IR) or radio (RF) link. Each mobile computing device appears to hold a user""s personal collection of documents, with the devices being programmed to receive, transmit, and store document identifiers (e.g., a URL - xe2x80x9cUniform Resource Locatorxe2x80x9d) or document tokens, as defined herein.
Each document token is associated with an electronic document stored in an electronic repository or database. The mobile document transaction service effectively distributes references to documents between mobile computing devices by transmission of document tokens, rather than the documents themselves. For example, a document can be sent to an IR transceiver equipped network printer by xe2x80x9cbeamingxe2x80x9d a document token, which references the document, from a mobile computing device to the network printer. The network printer retrieves the complete document referenced by the document token, and immediately prints a copy of the document. Thus, to a user of the mobile document transaction service, documents are seamlessly passed between users and output or input to devices coupled to networks as expansive as the Internet. Since the document references are small and defined, the documents that they reference can have an arbitrary size and not impact the performance of the mobile computing devices. Advantageously, token based document references can be passed between two mobile computing devices without having to transmit large amounts of data.
A user of a mobile document transaction service often needs to know about and use document devices and services when in unfamiliar surroundings. For example, users of the mobile document transaction service who travel to a new location need to make use of available document devices and services (e.g., printers). Currently, a user must be aware of the name, whereabouts and capabilities of a given device or service to be able to use it over a network. Generally, unless a user is specifically aware of a document service available on a network, the user must potentially navigate through a series of links to first locate a device and then access the document service that it provides. It would be advantageous, therefore, to provide a user interface that offers users of the mobile document transaction service, fast and easy access to document services that are proximate to the location at which the users are physically situated.
In accordance with the invention there is provided a method and apparatus therefor, for operating a system of token-aware document services. The system includes a token-enabled server that records a database of document tokens. The token-enabled server is coupled to a network of file servers for storing the documents referenced by the document tokens. Each document token identifies a location of a document stored on the network. The token-enabled server receives, from a mobile computing device, a request for available document services for performing with document tokens. In addition, the token-enabled server receives, with the request for available document services received from the mobile computing device, a context identifier for providing an indication of physical location. The context identifier specifies a physical location from which the request for document services is transmitted by the mobile computing device.
In accordance with one aspect of the invention, the token-enabled server develops a hierarchically ordered list of available document services using the context identifier. The context identifier is associated with a unique document device coupled to the network. The hierarchically ordered list provides two levels of access to document services available for document tokens. The first level of access provides immediate access to perform a document service available at the unique document device. The second level of access provides indirect access to additional document services that are available at other document devices. Once developed, the token-enable server transmits the hierarchically ordered list of available document services to the mobile computing device.